Page 131 - THE SCARLET LETTER

The Scarlet Letter

hidden sin in other hearts. She was terror- stricken by the
revelations that were thus made. What were they? Could
they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel,
who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as

yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity
was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be
shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom
besides Hester Prynne’s? Or, must she receive those
intimations—so obscure, yet so distinct—as truth? In all
her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful
and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed, as well as
shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the
occasions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the
red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic
throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or
magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that
age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in
fellowship with angels. ‘What evil thing is at hand?’ would
Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there
would be nothing human within the scope of view, save
the form of this earthly saint! Again a mystic sisterhood
would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the
sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the
rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her

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